Queen's Brian May says the Freddie Mercury biopic dodged a bullet when it lost actor/comedian Sacha Baron Cohen as its lead.

May said he, drummer Roger Taylor and the film's producers knew finding the right person to play Mercury would be a challenge. May tell's Classic Rockmagazine that there were times when they thought "it was impossible."

"Well, that was a near-disaster," May said of the brief collaboration with Cohen. "I think we realized just in time what a disaster that was going to be." And it actually wasn't rocket science to figure that out." (May has a doctorate in astrophysics, so even if it was rocket science, he would have been able to figure it out, theoretically.)

"But yeah, that's one of the rocks that we nearly hit," he concluded.

Of course if Cohen remained in the role of Mercury, Queen's team would never have found the film's eventual star, Rami Malek, who's received rave reviews for his portrayal, including from May and Taylor.